


(un)prepared

by Hllangel



Category: Bomb Girls
Genre: 2.01: the quickening, F/F, Physical Abuse, Spoilers, reaction fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 11:51:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hllangel/pseuds/Hllangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate's imagined this a thousand times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(un)prepared

**Author's Note:**

> There is so much depth in Kate's reaction to her father's death. I had to get inside her head and explore it a bit. Unbate'ed any mistakes are my own.

Kate has fantasized about this nearly every day for as long as she can remember. She’s made plans.

Poison, knives, fire.

When she cooks dinner, she sometimes takes a bit too long to let go of the knife, watching him, waiting for the moment when he’s turned away from her, the perfect moment. 

She thinks about slipping something into his food. But she doesn’t know what will finish the job and what will simply make him sick. And if she gets it wrong then things will only get worse. 

She thinks about sneaking out in the middle of the night and setting their trailer on fire, with him inside. With any luck he’ll be trapped and she’ll be free again. But he’s a light sleeper and would probably wake up before too much damage is done.

Though she holds as much detail as she dares in her head, She’s never gone through with any of them. So long as he holds her mother’s location, she won’t go after him. She thinks he’s lying, but she can’t say it without risking more scars. It would be worse this time, without her mother there to try to protect her. 

She thinks that she’ll panic when it’s done. It’s not the sight of blood that will get to her. It will be the loss of direction, where will she go from there? They don’t have much money, even if she knows where he keeps the change they earn from strangers on the street. She doesn’t know if she can go back to VicMu. It won’t be the same, this time. She would carry the weight of her actions back to the factory, wanting, but not daring, to tell Betty how she escaped and found her way back.

When Betty finds her, she doesn’t know what to do. Her father knows who Betty is, and if she risks even a few seconds of friendly conversation he’ll punish her for daring to consort with the devil, again. The best she can hope for is that they move on before Betty comes back. 

Of course, Betty’s never been one to give up easily. Even when it’s just the two of them against his evil heart and violent ways Kate feels safe enough to finally tell him what she thinks.

It’s Betty who taunts Kate’s father into following her up the stairs, but in the end it’s Kate who pulls him off of Betty and propels him over the railing.

And it’s Betty who panics, not Kate. 

She’s imagined this so many times; she’s stood over his lifeless body countless times in her fantasies, and now she’s doing it in reality. She knows right away that he’s gone as soon as hits the pavement. 

“You can stop, Betty,” she says, in a voice that doesn’t feel like her own. “he’s dead.” 

Those two simple words have been living in her heart for so long that it feels alien to say them out loud. 

“He seems so small.” And he does. He’s towered over her whole life, but now at the end of his, she’s standing tall. 

“You stay here, I’ll get the police,” Betty says. She’s near panic, Kate can tell. She’s lost her iron clad control. This, Kate knows, is a side to Betty that only she will get to see, and only here, now, while they’re standing over her dead Father. 

“No.” Kate needs to control this. It is the first thing she’s ever had full control over. “We’re not doing that.” 

“It’s the right thing. We owe him that.” 

“No. We don’t owe him a thing.” 

She covers him with an abandoned tarp. An a dirty resting spot for a terrible man. _May he burn in hell_ , Kate thinks. 

The rest of the night is a dream. She’d always thought she’d go back to Betty and the rooming house and VicMu after leaving her father, but she wasn’t prepared to actually go. Betty tells her that a lot of the girls are out at Gladys’ soiree, which is lucky because it’ll be easier to get Kate inside. 

In the mirror, her reflection looks the same as it always has: red hair, slim face, sad eyes, but she feels different. She killed a man. She killed her father. And it wasn’t an accident. She feels that some of it should reflect on the outside, but it doesn’t. 

She’s happy to see Gladys, but they don’t tell her the story of how Kate came back. She suspects they’ll crack eventually, and that Gladys will approve, but right now it’s her secret with Betty. 

It’s not until Gladys is gone and the lights are out, and she’s tucked into bed with Betty, warm and safe, with Betty’s arms around her that she starts to cry.


End file.
